Jim Boeheim defended Adrian Autry as “a good coach,” saying his dismissal from Syracuse was a result of poor performance by the Orange’s best players and lack of NIL funding for the program.
Syracuse fired Autry on Wednesday, ending the former Orange player’s three-year tenure as Boeheim’s coaching successor. The Orange went 15-17 this season and failed to reach the NCAA tournament under Autry.
Boeheim acknowledged that “the head coach is responsible” for results, but added that player performance was a huge factor in Syracuse’s struggles this season under Autry.
“I think he’s a good coach,” Boeheim said Wednesday on the ACC Network. “I think he got in a situation where his best players just didn’t play the way they needed to play, and it cost him his job.”
Boeheim echoed those sentiments in a separate interview Wednesday with Cuse Sports Talk, saying Autry was “let down” by his star players.
“The one thing with Adrian this year — he’s not going to say this, and people will think I shouldn’t say it — his two best players had bad years,” Boeheim told Cuse Sports Talk.
“They had bad years on offense. They had bad years on defense. The best two players have to have great years. That didn’t happen. … He got let down by those guys, I think. I think they would say the same thing. I think they’d say, ‘Yeah, we didn’t play well.'”
Boeheim did not identify which players he was referring to in either interview. Syracuse’s two leading returning scorers from last season — J.J. Starling and Donnie Freeman — both had disappointing seasons in 2025-26.
Starling, a senior guard who scored a team-high 17.8 points per game last season, averaged just 10.9 points per game this season. Freeman, a 6-foot-9 sophomore, saw his scoring average improve — from 13.4 points last season to 16.5 this season — but was down in virtually every other statistical category, including rebounding and shooting percentages.
“His two best players had horrible years,” Boeheim told ACC Network. “If you take any team in this league, and you take their two best players and they have really, really bad years — like Cam Boozer and Isaiah Evans have a bad year at Duke — they don’t win.
“That’s what happened this year at Syracuse. His two best players just didn’t play well.”
Boeheim also briefly mentioned the NIL situation at Syracuse, comparing it to Boston College and Georgia Tech — two other ACC schools that fired their coaches after rough seasons.
“If you don’t have enough resources, that puts you behind,” he told ACC Network. “You look at the league — BC, Georgia Tech, now Syracuse — three of the [lowest for] NIL money in the league. You have to look at that.”
The Daily Orange recently reported that Syracuse spends around $8 million on its basketball roster this season — a number that pales in comparison to other basketball programs, according to Boeheim.
“Football is crazy now,” he told Cuse Sports Talk, referring to NIL funding in the ACC. “The big-time schools are paying $35-40 million. Basketball is $10-20 [million] — some at 20, some at 15, some at 10. That’s the reality.”
A four-year Syracuse starter under Boeheim and later his associate head coach, Autry took over for the retiring Hall of Famer in 2023, only to fail to gain any traction in carrying the program into its post-Boeheim era, finishing with a 49-48 overall record.
Syracuse finished with consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1968-69.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
